CCTV9英语新闻：Pakistani companies to benefit from bilateral economic relations with China（在线收听）

The China-Pakistan Year of Friendly Exchanges was launched in Beijing on Monday. China and Pakistan say this will engender huge opportunities in trade from both nations. CCTV’s Tang Bo finds out what it means for Pakistani companies wanting to do business in China.

For the past 10 years in Beijing, Naeem Aftab has been working for Netsol Technologies, a global provider of enterprise IT solutions. Netsol counts 17 of 22 of China’s foreign mobile companies amongst its clients.

Netsol is just one of many Pakistani companies that are expanding their businesses in China under auspices of the bilateral free trade agreement.

Exports to China from the south Asian country have dramatically expanded since the free trade agreement kick-started in 2007.

Exchanges in service sectors also grew rapidly after a service trading agreement was signed in 2009.

"Under the free trade agreement, China grants Pakistani investors most-favored-nation treatment and national treatment which means Pakistani enterprises and companies will have the same advantages given to Chinese locals," Li Li, research fellow with China Inst. Of Contemporary Int'l Relations, said.

There are now 31 Pakistani projects in China, with a total investment of around 90 million US dollars since the first Pakistani company set up shop in China in 2007.

In 2013 alone, Pakistan injected 18 million US dollars of investment into China, an 8 fold increase from the previous year.

Though benefits from the economic partnership leans in favor of Chinese exporters at this time, Pakistani firms will soon see more upsides to doing business in China.

"China had more than 8 billion US dollars in trade surplus with Pakistan in 2013. To solve this problem, China has been increasing its investment to Pakistan, and the idea of a China-Pakistan economic corridor also aims to help ease the country’s trade deficit. But in the long run, China needs to change its way of investment to bring not only the money, but also technologies to Pakistan," Li said.

It's a message echoed by Naeem Aftab.

Deliberations over the second phase of China-Pakistan Free Trade Agreement have begun with an underlying principle that it’ll be aimed at providing more benefits to Pakistan. But experts say no matter what goods and services can yield good export markets in both countries, more stress needs to be placed on technology transfers and productivity enhancement for a sustainable economic cooperation in the future.